You don't know what Riggs "definitely wanted" to do.
His partisanship in his book's presentation makes his intentions very clear. You might not want to acknowledge that, of course, but he's not at all trying to hide his take on things.
Riggs. Also, I'll note that I'm openly stating that this is my opinion, and that I'm not writing a book that purports to present itself as factual.
The tale of why TSR failed is ultimately on Gygax and the Blumes every bit as much as on Williams. Frankly, she bought TSR an extra decade; it was going bankrupt when she took control. Of course, she bought that extra decade through doubling down on some unsustainable publishing practices based on the weird Random House deal that Gygax negotiated, so it's not like she was a management genius. But if it wasn't for Williams TSR was dead in 1985.
"As much"? No. There's blame to go around, that's for certain, but to say it can all be distributed equitably is not the case. Gary was, almost from the beginning, in a cold war to try and set the direction for TSR. He absolutely made mistakes, and there were issues with his leadership, but at the end of the day it was never all on him. Williams, however, had total control, and still wasn't able to last any longer than the Gygax/Blume leadership had been.
Likewise, the idea that "TSR was dead" in 1985 is a bit of a mischaracterization. The company absolutely had more debts than assets, but Gary's plan for turning the ship around was to try and release more content (which is why we got the hastily-released
Unearthed Arcana and
Oriental Adventures that same year). Whether or not that would have worked is unclear; it's likewise a counterfactual to speculate as to whether or not someone else would have stepped in and purchased the company, but it's not unthinkable; Williams herself thought that TSR and D&D were still financially viable, and given the game's fame at the time it's not hard to see someone else thinking the same, so we shouldn't pretend it was either Williams or TSR and D&D vanishing into history.
Except no one has called her a toxic boss except you, based on very selective reading of evidence. Re-read Rose Estes' description of Gygax for a a description of a toxic boss! And I didn't write anything off; I stated that yelling at employees is always inappropriate. People are complicated, and you citing one piece of evidence while ignoring the others that don't fit your thesis doesn't convince me that Lorraine Williams was a "toxic boss." Again, we have far, far more examples of Gygax behaving in toxic ways (c.f. the OP) than Williams, and Riggs specifically asked staff to compare them. They preferred working under her, though you seem to be effectively accusing Riggs of lying about this.
The reading isn't selective; as I've said, I'm of the opinion that putting forward the idea that the positive somehow make up for the negatives isn't one that I agree with, as it makes excuses for a bad work environment. "Toxic" is absolutely the right word, in my opinion, for a boss whose employees describe by using words like "afraid of" and "yelled, a lot." The evidence that she was a good person who did good things isn't being ignored; it's being found as not an excuse.
Saying that "Gygax did it too!" doesn't mean that Williams is any less culpable for how she acted, so I'm honestly not sure why you keep bringing that up.
Riggs is far from the only person to have touched on Gygax basically abdicating his responsibilities while in California, and I don't really want to get into the many sordid details. Let's just say that there are many, many accounts of Gygax embracing what we could politely call a Hollywood lifestyle during his mid-life adventure and leave it at that. Frankly, I think Riggs handles that aspect of the story with kid gloves.
The issue isn't that Riggs touched on Gygax's time in California lightly. It's that he makes a mockery of the idea that "distance = being out of touch" with regards to Gary's relationship to TSR headquarters, and then affirms it with regards to TSR West's relationship to TSR headquarters. He isn't consistent, and taken together with things like his repeatedly referring to Gary as "Saint Gary," it gives reason to look askance at things that he personally assures the readers of. Partisanship erodes trust.
Yes, and in Game Wizards Peterson goes into much more detail about Gygax hemming and hawing on the issue, and that Gygax absolutely could have afforded to buy the shares. Gygax simply wouldn't commit. Then the sellers became frustrated, and Williams put her money where her mouth was.
Untrue, as Peterson documents. He could afford it; he didn't want to pay it.
I feel like there's a bit of hair-splitting going on in your assertion that he definitely could have afforded to purchase those shares. Even if we grant that proposal, there's a difference between what someone could afford and what's a reasonable price. I can afford a lot of things if I, for instance, sell my house to finance the purchase. That's by no means something that's reasonable.
But really, the entire issue with Gary's missed opportunity to buy the Blumes out is something of a digression, largely with regards to the issue of characterizing Williams as having "stolen" the company. Opinions will vary with regard to her having cut a deal with the Blumes to buy the company from them after Gary was the one who brought her on board in the first place. That doesn't change how the working environment under her leadership has been described.
Yeah, she she definitely did. Ten years after saving it from Gygax and the Blumes running it into the ground.
I'm glad we can agree that she definitely ran the company into the ground, establishing that in that regard she was (at the very least) no better than the people she bought the company from.
But no one has disputed that she led TSR into insolvency. Yet Gygax and the Blumes previously did the exact same thing, which is how she was able to buy it.
Since you previously characterized Gary's tenure as an "abject failure," and now are equating Williams' tenure to his, does that mean you'd also describe her as an "abject failure" as well?
People are complicated, and I don't think that "Gygax was awful." I think that Williams gets way too much heat whereas Gygax gets way too little. There are far, far more stories about Gygax treating people miserably than Lorraine Williams (again, c.f. the OP). [...] People are complicated, and both of these people have some serious flaws. But I think Williams is often very unfairly vilified, and I think Gygax is often unfairly lionized.
And really, this is where I think we disagree. While I agree that Gygax's successes have been deservedly lauded, I don't think there's ever been any lack of detractors pointing out his mistakes, flaws, and failings; if you read
Playing at the World, you'll notice that even as early as 1975, one year after D&D came out, hobbyists and fans were already giving him grief for his take on things...oftentimes deservedly so. Whether or not his successes outshine his failures is up to each individual to determine for themselves.
Much of this can also be said of Williams, of course. I've personally noted
on these forums that she was the impetus for the product that got me into D&D. She's absolutely, as I said before, not a caricature. But she too has a
lot of stories that paint her in a bad light ("I did not witness this but was told it independently by two higher-ups whom I trusted. Lorraine once got pissed at something done by the head of the book department at TSR. She called the dept head into a meeting of all the execs, called her a "stupid, useless cow," and fired her on the spot."), and in my opinion the negatives outweigh the positives. YMMV.
